My Romance Game Updated – Chapter 9

Human Scum and Beasts

After dragging the man onto the bus, the girl ran straight to the back. Peering through the rear window, she made a ’12’ gesture in Ren Chenxi’s direction. She was signaling that there were still 12 enemies inside the supermarket.

In truth, Ren Chenxi didn’t need the warning. Her mini-map¹ had already told her how many enemies were inside. But the girl’s gesture made her reconsider. She canceled her previous plan and decided to stay hidden in her current position. A new rock, the size of a fist, appeared in her right hand as she waited for the next person to emerge.

Inside the supermarket, the remaining yellow dots² were quiet, likely because one girl had already been killed and another dragged away. Only the coarse, gravelly voices of men broke the silence from time to time. From the muffled conversation, Ren Chenxi gathered that the men were getting ready for dinner and were forcing the women—the yellow dots—to cook for them.

Ren Chenxi had no desire to know what was on the menu. Knowing the yellow dots were safe for the moment, all she had to do was wait.

She only had to wait five minutes. Another man came out, dragging the motionless corpse of a woman. In his right hand, he held a large, gleaming cleaver. After he stepped outside, the supermarket doors were shut again from the inside. Perhaps they don’t want to see what he’s about to do, Ren Chenxi mused, or maybe… they don’t want the smell to ruin their appetites?

Instead of heading for the bus, the man started dragging the corpse in her direction. How could Ren Chenxi possibly let such a perfect opportunity go to waste? She instantly swapped the rock for the fruit knife she’d gotten from the hotel and hurled it at the man’s throat.

A spray of crimson erupted. Just like the first, the man collapsed forward without making a sound.

He fell just a few steps from the bus door, and the girl from the bus ran out again to collect the body. The Corpse-Collecting Girl³ was cautious. She first glanced at the supermarket, confirming that the windows furthest from the main door didn’t have a view of her position. Only then did she carefully bend down, snatch the cleaver from the ground, and toss it onto the bus. Then, with one hand on the male corpse and the other on the female one, she hauled them both aboard. Watching the girl’s heroic display of corpse-hauling, Ren Chenxi marveled. This girl looks so delicate and gentle-looking, but she’s an esper⁴. With that much strength, could she be a Strength-Type Esper?

But if even a Strength-Type Esper could be captured by this pack of beasts⁵… Does that mean there’s an even more powerful esper among them?

At that thought, Ren Chenxi’s expression hardened, and her gaze on the supermarket doors grew sharper with vigilance.

About ten minutes later, a rich aroma began to drift from the supermarket, so fragrant it made Ren Chenxi feel a little dazed. Is that… the smell of a hot pot soup base⁶? These beasts are eating hot pot?!!! I’ve been surviving on dry rations washed down with cold water for a week!!!

Just as she was feeling sourly and indignantly⁷ resentful, another man came out. Maybe he thought the guy dragging the corpse was too slow. Was he here to hurry him along, or to help? After all, this man was also carrying a big cleaver.

After stepping out, he casually kicked the supermarket door shut. As much as Ren Chenxi loathed these beasts, she was slightly grateful for their good habit of closing doors with their hands or feet.

The man finished kicking the door, then turned and saw the pool of blood in front of the bus. He froze for a second before erupting in a stream of curses. “I XXXX your grandpa⁸, Lao Qian⁹! Damn it¹⁰, you’re dealing with the body on the bus? How the hell is anyone supposed to live in this thing later…” Swearing, he raised his hand to bang on the vehicle’s door.

The moment he went to hit the door, Ren Chenxi threw another fist-sized rock, striking him squarely in the temple¹¹. The man’s curses stopped abruptly, and he toppled over. However, the red dot¹² representing him on the mini-map didn’t disappear. His health bar¹³ had only dropped by half.

This man was an esper. His body was naturally stronger than a normal person’s, and his health bar was longer than the previous two men. A heavy blow to the temple had only been enough to knock him unconscious.

The Corpse-Collecting Girl opened the door again to retrieve the body. Ren Chenxi revealed herself from the bushes and made a throat-slitting gesture. The girl must have noticed the man was still breathing, because she immediately snatched the cleaver still clutched in his hand. She gave Ren Chenxi an OK sign and dragged the man onto the bus.

At that moment, there were still 10 red dots in the supermarket.

But everything changed in an instant. On the mini-map, two red dots began moving rapidly toward the supermarket entrance. Before Ren Chenxi could find a way to warn the Corpse-Collecting Girl, the door was pushed open. The bus door was not yet closed.

“Cnm¹⁴!!!” As expected, the man who opened the door saw his unconscious companion being dragged onto the bus. He roared in fury, “Stinking whore, you’re looking for death! Lao Si¹⁵! Lao Wu¹⁶! Everyone get out here! We’re putting this stinking whore in the pot today!!!” With that, he was the first to charge the bus.

“What’s wrong? What’s happening?”

As they spoke, five more men poured out of the supermarket. The Corpse-Collecting Girl remained calm, her reaction swift. Faced with five large men rushing toward her, she slammed the bus door shut with a loud smack!

While the group of men surrounded the bus, pounding on the door and screaming curses, Ren Chenxi threw a Flash Card¹⁷. It accurately hit the man with the little mustache at the very front, the one who was yelling the loudest.

“Aah—my eyes—”

A brilliant white light flashed. The man with the little mustache and his buddies all screamed, clutching their eyes. The blast even caught two more men who had been watching from the supermarket doorway.

After all, the Flash Card affected everyone within a five-meter radius of the target. The light itself was just a flash, but the blindness it caused lasted for a full 20 seconds.

Staring coldly at these human scum as they stumbled around, blind and bumping into one another, Ren Chenxi seized the 20-second window. She hurled rock after rock at them with brutal force. Some collapsed after a single hit, their health bars bottoming out and their red dots vanishing. Others took three stones before they fell, but still had a sliver of health remaining.

One, two, three, four… Just as Ren Chenxi was about to take down the fifth man, a Fire Snake¹⁸ shot toward her position. It fell short, its flames only managing to consume a patch of tall weeds in front of her before dissipating. The fire burned right up to her feet before she stomped it out. But in doing so, her position was revealed.

Since she was exposed, Ren Chenxi decided to act openly. She threw two more fist-sized rocks, completely draining the fifth man’s health bar.

“Enough! Stop!!!”

An impotent roar came from inside the supermarket. Ren Chenxi looked toward the sound and saw a figure by the window quickly duck down, hiding themselves completely from her line of sight. They were probably terrified by her perfect, hundred-shots-a-hundred-hits¹⁹ accuracy with the stones.

“You’re an esper, right? Come out, let’s talk!”

Heh, if I step out any further, I’ll be in your attack range, won’t I? Ren Chenxi wasn’t stupid. She was about 15 meters from the window, and the Fire-System Esper’s attack range was only about 10 meters. But… if I move forward, couldn’t I lure those human scum hiding under the window out into the open? That Fire Snake made it clear he can’t attack me through the wall. As long as I’m faster than him, I can blind all five of those red dots under the window!

While Ren Chenxi was secretly plotting, the man’s coarse voice called out again.

“Get out here now! If you don’t, I’ll kill all the women left in here!!!”

…Fine. Now she really had to go out. Especially since she noticed that on her mini-map, two of the four remaining yellow dots had, at some point, turned green²⁰.

Even though Ren Chenxi had been trying to hypnotize herself into seeing these people as nothing more than NPCs and human-shaped monsters ever since she started killing them with rocks, the sight of those two green dots made it impossible for her to be ruthless enough to ignore their lives.

After spending a week alone in the hotel, Ren Chenxi now felt that having a few companions to support each other in this apocalypse might not be so bad. Besides, with her mini-map, she could tell right away which companions were reliable and which weren’t.

“Alright, stop howling. I’m coming out.”

Ren Chenxi raised her voice and walked, step by step, toward the window.

“A woman?”

Another male voice drifted from below the window. A dark head popped up and then quickly ducked back down. It happened so fast that Ren Chenxi didn’t even have time to throw a Flash Card.

“Holy crap! And a great beauty at that!!!”

It was true. Compared to the Corpse-Collecting Girl and the female corpse that had almost become food for the human scum—both of whom had faces full of dust and dirt²¹ and looked utterly wretched—Ren Chenxi was clean and tidy. She had tied her shoulder-length hair into a low ponytail. She wore a slim, long trench coat over a pair of slightly loose casual pants and a brand-new pair of sneakers. This outfit was from an Outfit Change Card²², though she’d swapped the original tight jeans for the casual pants. Ren Chenxi didn’t like pants that were too tight. Even so, the casual pants still made her legs look long and straight.

More importantly, Ren Chenxi was naturally good-looking. And since she hadn’t been running around in this world for the past two years of the apocalypse, her skin, which didn’t tan easily, was still as fair and clear as it had been in the real world.

The man’s compliment registered, but not with any flicker of vanity. Instead, she wondered…

With this androgynous style²³ of dress, he could tell I was a woman at a glance?

Before the game update, her hair had been shorter, she’d worn a chest binder²⁴, and she’d lowered her voice when she spoke. But her face was the same, her body was the same, and yet not a single person around her had realized she was a woman. Back then, Ren Chenxi had truly thought she looked just like her rough man²⁵ of a brother, and she’d been depressed about it for a long time. But now, the moment her player gender was changed, people could tell she was a woman?

So, was it because of the system’s player information that everyone around me collectively went blind²⁶?

Whatever, why bother with that now? I was secretly playing my old bro’s²⁷ account to romance the campus goddess as a man, anyway! If that Wooden Goddess²⁸ didn’t see me as a man, how would her Favorability Value²⁹ have suddenly maxed out later?

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